A blind Indian teen by the name of Kartik Sawhney has proved a lot of people wrong and changed the way educators in the country look at disabled students by passing the challenging science courses in the country’s central board exams.

According to the Times of India, India’s Central Board of Secondary Education were against Sawhney studying such serious subjects such as science and math because of the heavily visual aspects involved in the process. “After class VIII, most blind were exempted from studying maths and science. They would be offered subjects like music,” George Abraham, CEO of Delhi’s Score Foundation, told the paper.

Sawhney ran into another hurdle when it came time to take the Indian Institue of Technology’s entrance exam, which does not make tests for blind candidates, making it hard for him to study at one of the country;s prestigious colleges. Thanks to his school and the NGO campaign, and the numerous letters he wrote to the CBSE as well, Sawhney was able to take the courses he wanted and scored 96 percent in his senior year. He will be studying computer science at Stanford starting in September.

“The journey was discouraging at times. But it’s satisfying to have gotten into Stanford, which has a support system for visually-challenged students,” Sawhney told the Hindustan Times.